Life is a grand and mysterious adventure, but it never looks quite so baffling as when it’s presented by director Terrence Malick (current holder of the greatest IMDB profile picture of all time). The enigmatic and uncompromising director has been inspiring and mystifying audiences in equal measure since 1973’s Badlands, and the fact that he has only released six feature films since then speaks to the care and precision with which he crafts his visions. Yet for many, these visions are an exercise in patience. Malick eschews traditional narrative techniques, presenting his stories more as a collection of moments and experiences than as a tidy, straightforward plot. In other words if you’re walking into a Malick film expecting some escapist entertainment, you’re in for disappointment.
Knight of Cups follows Christian Bale’s Rick, a Hollywood screenwriter who seems to be doing pretty well career-wise, but is having a bit of an existential crisis. Though the reason for said crisis isn’t really apparent, it’s certainly causing him a lot of grief. He wanders through purgatoryesque studio backlots and nudity filled Hollywood parties looking very bored with the whole thing. He doesn’t do anything as drastic as buy a motorcycle or get a tattoo, but he does go to a tarot card reader at one point, which seems a bit out of character. Plus it gives the film its structure, so that’s good.
Cut out the narration and the famous actors and the film could be mistaken for the loop they play on 4K televisions down at Best Buy.
The film is separated into eight parts, each headed by the name of a tarot card and referring to figures from Rick’s life. There’s the The Hanged Man, which refers to Rick’s troubled brother Barry (Wes Bentley) and his father Joseph (Brian Dennehy); there’s Judgement, Rick’s plastic surgeon ex-wife Nancy (Cate Blanchett); there’s Death, a former girlfriend Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) who cheated on her husband with Rick; and many more. In each of these chapters Rick recalls a lifetime of relationships with these people, often interacting with them in moments that feel like the present but are probably just symbolic of the past. There’s a haunting quality to some – his father stomps around and mutters angrily like a Willy Loman imprisoned in Rick’s head – while others have a more mystical, soothing presence. Carrying us through each of these chapters is narration which fluctuates between a story about a prince searching for a pearl in a faraway land, and more general philosophical monologuing.
If that sounds a little intimidating, it is. While I was really rooting for an Ebenezer Scrooge-style lesson-learned ending in which all of these ghosts of Rick’s past teach him some important lesson and then he yells at a boy to buy a goose, that’s not where this goes. If Malick is trying to make a specific point, it’s nearly impossible to understand amidst all the voices. Yet as a purely visual experience it’s lovely. Oscar-devouring cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki provides the photography and it’s as trippy and dreamlike as you’d expect from a film that takes place in a guy’s head. Yet as nice as the visuals are I have to say I enjoy Lubezki’s skills being utilized more in epic action sequences than I do shooting crashing waves and people’s hands running thoughtfully along fences. Cut out the narration and the famous actors and the film could be mistaken for the loop they play on 4K televisions down at Best Buy.
In the end the most frustrating thing about Knight of Cups is that we never really learn much about our protagonist. Sure we get a laundry list of his past acquaintances, but he never talks and barely emotes through the whole thing. If the film is a collection of memories seen through Rick’s eyes I guess he wouldn’t talk much, but I don’t know, I come up with all kinds of great lines in my own head, so I think it would’ve been nice to hear Rick say “well that guy was an asshole” or something just once. Rick’s entire act of reflection is frustrating because you have no idea what the trouble is to begin with. Why’s he so down? Is he better at the end? Is this entire movie supposed to be reflective of the larger human condition and not specifically Rick? Have I entirely missed the point? Existential ennui is only gripping when we’re given a reason to care. Unfortunately I found such a reason hard to find in Knight of Cups.
Reviewed by Evan Arppe.
